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Links I Loved This Week – 12/10/2017

December 10, 2017

I can’t believe it’s only 2 weeks until Christmas and also only 13 days until I leave for my two-week vacation to see my family in Milan. I couldn’t be more excited about it because a) it’s real winter in Milan right now, with temperatures below 50 degrees (while here in LA it insists being over 80) and b) this gives me the perfect excuse to vegetate and read to my hearts content while I’m there.

What are all your plans for the Christmas vacation? I need to start selecting the books I want to read on my trip, though hopefully many of them will be in ebook version and won’t require weighing down my suitcase. In the meantime, I have about eight million more holiday parties to attend before the end of the work year. Definitely going out of 2017 with a bang!

Before we get on to this week’s links, I’m currently running a giveaway (through Wednesday December 13th) for two gorgeous snowflake-themed Book Buddles (one paperback and one hardcover sized). It’s INTERNATIONAL, so make sure to enter if you’re interested (link in this post).

Of course the Goodreads Choice Award winners were announced this week, and I was not surprised that most of my picks did not make it to #1, as I could tell while I was voting which title would actually win based on overall popularity. The one winner I did pick was What Happened by Hillary Clinton, which took first place in the memoir & autobiography category. You can read my review of it here.

I really loved this post on Reading Every Night that compiled advice from many experienced book bloggers to those who are just starting out with their blog. Even as someone who has been blogging for over a year now, I found the advice really helpful and cathartic. Definitely worth a read!

I wanted to congratulate Katie at Doing Dewey on her impressive six-year blogiversary! Definitely someone whose efforts to look up to in the book blogging world. I also wanted to highlight that she runs a Nonfiction Friday linkup every week, so if you post any nonfiction reviews, make sure to share them on her page.

Inge at The Belgian Reviewer tested out the cutest idea for a mini Christmas tree made out of book pages. It looks relatively simple to make but comes out really cute, and would make a great bookish decoration for a small space or even a cubicle at work.

And as always, if you’re looking for even more bookish links, The Secret Library Blog has her post up today as well!

Here are the individual book reviews I read this week that inspired me to consider reading the books they covered:

For this upcoming week I’m planning on participating in the Top Ten Tuesday topic with a list of my Top Ten Books for 2017, and after that I’m planning to post a review of Isabelle Allende’s new novel In The Midst Of Winter. I’m going to combine the review with photos, note and insights from the event I went to last week at which I had the opportunity to hear her speak. If I can, I’ll squeeze one more review in there as well, since I’m starting to get a bit behind (but who isn’t).

Is anyone else here obsessed with the idea of a tiny home? It definitely would take all sorts of financial and logistical preparation to take the plunge, so I was very intrigued by this idea of a tiny home hotel located in a ski resort in Wyoming. I particular like the idea of visiting it by myself in the spring for a weekend, to disconnect. Although that kind of sounds like the kind of plot that would make a great premise for a thriller.

Are you as excited as I am about Season 2 of The Crown. I haven’t started it yet (though I plan to today) because I’ve been re-watching Season 1 all day yesterday to be prepared to experience Season 2 fully immersed.

My work is having a cookie exchange tomorrow, and though I’m planning on making my usual almond raspberry thumbprints as one of my cookie options, I’ve been undecided about a second recipe. I’m considering these chocolate peppermint cookies. Any suggestions? I like drop cookies that don’t involve complex decoration.

Any articles or blog posts from the book world that you really enjoyed this week? Share them in the comments!

31 comments for “Links I Loved This Week – 12/10/2017”

Wow! Milan sounds like a lot of fun. Hopefully you’ll be bringing along a bunch of great books to read there. Thank you so much for the shout out too!!! Really appreciate that. 🙂 Honestly can’t believe the Holidays are almost here. It was Halloween just a couple of days ago!!! 😛

I love posts with bookish gift suggestions, the more the merrier :-). It doesn’t mean I’ll get them though but it never hurts looking (and bookmarking) right? Also someone’s been blogging for 6 years, wow! That’s amazing and looks far far away for me! Thank you for mentioning me and enjoying my little book tree :-). I’m going to check out these cookies now because these sounds brilliant!

I made the chocolate peppermint ones for the first time last night and they came out delicious! I omitted the peppermint extract because it sounded like overkill in addition to the crushed peppermint candy canes and it was the right decision. Now the cookies have a hint of pepperming instead of being overloaded with it!

Thanks so much for featuring my post this week. I’m glad you enjoyed it enough to feature it, and hopefully other bloggers will find the advice helpful as well.
I’ll be sure to check out the other posts as well, especially the bookish gifts ones because, well I always need ideas for what I can buy people for Christmas. 🙂
I hope you have a good time in Milan, I’m sure it will be amazing there and nice to catch up with your family as well. 🙂
Great post, and again thanks for featuring my post as well. 😀

Yes I think for retirement it sounds like a great idea. I know I could deal with the smaller space but the main issues I’d have are the fact you have to figure out a place to park the house that has electricity and water plug ins and there aren’t many options in LA, and also my rabbit… though he’s used to just being in one room at the moment so he might adapt just fine.

I loved Exit West AND Eleanor, so I guess I split that one with you! I’m wishing I’d jumped on the bandwagon of that hyped books post. There were so many that I felt didn’t live up to the hype. If things ever slow down, I might do it anyway. Thanks for the mention and again, love these posts. They’re becoming a most pleasurable part of my Sundays!

Thanks for the shout-out Ottavia! I would never have guessed you’d only been blogging for about a year. One of my goals for the new year is to come up with a more cohesive feel for my blog post graphics and that’s something I feel like you really have down. It looks super professional 🙂

Thanks! I did it all on Canva if that helps 🙂 Just had to come up with the right size for the banners, then it was a matter of picking text and adding lines. I think for the amount of work I put into I really got a lot out of it in terms of effect!